I just bumped into the idea of "demographic diversity" versus "moral diversity" [1].

Demographic diversity speaks to the differences in sex, race, sexual orientation, etc. A nation of immigrants, for example.

Moral diversity speaks to the differences in culture, the rules a society follows. Erosion of those rules is what leads to a low trust society.

I thought this was a really interesting distinction to make.

It seems that the U.S. is not as high trust as it was 75+ years ago. The book I read used the example of neighbors disciplining children, which was more common in U.S. culture 75+ years ago. Today you'd worry about a parent calling the police for that. In general the idea of character has replaced with personality. Moral diversity. Live and let live.

But on the other hand 75+ years ago women and minorities were more limited. We now have more demographic diversity. Which is a good thing.

I would like to think that demographic diversity and a high trust society aren't mutually exclusive. Conflating the two doesn't help.

[1] The Happiness Hypothesis, by Jonathan Haidt, Chapter 8, The Felicity of Virtue

Haidt et al decompose moral foundations into several factors to explain how progressives and conservatives view morality differently by virtue of prioritizing different factors; cf. Liberals and Conservatives Rely on Different Sets of Moral Foundations https://fbaum.unc.edu/teaching/articles/JPSP-2009-Moral-Foun...

Moral diversity has always existed. What is new is that polarization between the two camps has been increasing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_polarization_in_the_...